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Published: December 1st 2007
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Although it is not part of my actual VSO placement, I am privileged to have a small involvement with a vocational training project for deaf students, at Galema Elementray School, in Robe. The project was set up by Catherine, Emma and Elmy (previous volunteers in Robe) using funding that they helped the school to obtain from the International Deaf Children’s Society. Today was a celebration of the first graduation of students who have completed Year 10.
There were several speeches, translated into sign language for the students by Aynalem - one of the Special Needs Teachers at the school. There were also two plays performed. The first, performed by hearing and deaf students, was the story of a couple who had a deaf child; they tried going to a priest and a doctor to get her “cured” and eventually heard about Galema School. They enrolled their child, who did very well and ended up graduating from Jimma University. The second play was performed entirely by deaf students, in sign language, translated into Afaan Oromo.
The Head of Robe Town Education Bureau presented certificates and then, to my surprise, presented me with a green cloth woven by Ballaxa Sisaay -
an excellent student who is now employed by the project as a weaving trainer. I felt like a fraud as I do very little for the project - apart from buying cloth and writing monitoring reports for IDCS, but I made a short speech saying how proud I was of the students.
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abate
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Graduation
I am happy to read about Galama students graduation.Thanks Kim to let us read. and I appreciated if you know that it was Catherine Hughes (the first VSO volunteer) who started the grant for deaf students and processed all things. After that Emma and Elmy continued. It is great to see the progress and the photos. Thanks again abate